


echoes in the shadows (hides a secret)

by DarkColdSummer



Series: fortune, misfortune, and everything in-between [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 01, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Episode: s01e01 The Rise of Voltron, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Galaxy Garrison, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Half-Galra Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Season/Series 01, Successful Kerberos Mission, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Zombie Apocalypse, fusing aus with canonverse shenanigans, very lightly implied but still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkColdSummer/pseuds/DarkColdSummer
Summary: Lance is lucky. Hunk is lucky. They share a dorm room, and Hunk absolutely despises waking up with the sun in his eyes. The one small window in their room is near permanently shut and blocked out by solid metal. They are safe.Katie is lucky. She - with herspecial circumstances- is allowed to stay in the rare solo dorm room - which are all fully closed off, with no windows and no way for the radiation-deadly/radiation-infectious rays of the sun to enter. She is safe.The Garrison? It’s a safe-space, apparently, with all the sun-afflicted “taken care of”.Shiro is not lucky. Keith is not lucky. The Garrison have reported them amongst some that have turned sun-afflicted.…Oh wait, the Garrison is a lie.(aka, remember that 900+ word zombie apocalypse AU based off a nightmare i had? yeah, as you can see, imightbe continuing the idea.)(s1e1 but if there was a zombie apocalypse going on at the same timeandthe garrison is shady af.)
Relationships: Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: fortune, misfortune, and everything in-between [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883455
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	echoes in the shadows (hides a secret)

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, you should probably read the series in order and stuff, but here’s a summary of what happened in the previous story if you really don’t want to.
> 
> Behind the scenes: Galra bioweapon gets lost and launches into Earth’s sun. It causes two waves of radiation - first one wipes out all those under the sunlight, second one turns people into Galra-like zombies. 
> 
> The scene: Keith is affected by the second wave, which starts bringing his Galra traits to the forefront. Shiro totally doesn’t cry over his inability to help his brother, Keith goes feral and attacks, Shiro believes he kills Keith in his self-defence.
> 
> In-between: Shiro panics, packs a bag and leaves. The Garrison starts doing shady stuff.

Lance curses under his breath, staring at his phone.

“Language,” Hunk chides. “There are literal children here.”

“I’m not a child,” Katie protests, frowning. “I’m fifteen.”

“Child,” Hunk repeats.

Lance looks at Hunk dead in the eye. “Fuck this shit,” he repeats and lets himself smile slightly as Hunk makes a slightly distressed noise at the back of his throat.

Lance and Hunk were lucky. When the sun decided to let out some form of radiation, they were in their metal-enclosed dorm room, windows blocked by metal sheets because Hunk hates waking up with the sun in his eyes. The radiation (which Katie admits functions pretty weirdly) didn’t manage to touch either of their skins.

Katie was lucky. Due to her special circumstances (and her having family in the Garrison which is a point in her favour so they can’t actively discriminate against her gender identity), she gets to stay in one of the rare solo dorm rooms - which are all fully closed off, with no way for the radioactive rays of the sun to come into contact with her. Not to mention, she hates the sun.

There are people who are not as lucky -they are lucky to not be amongst them. (Not to be amongst the likes of Cadet Kogane or Officers Shirogane and Shirogane or Commander Holt or Officer Holt or-)

“We need to leave,” Lance continues, and presses on even as Hunk moves to cut in. “No, hear me out. Of the remaining cadets and staff of the Garrison, those that get called away never return. We never hear from them again - it’s incredibly suspicious and only a matter of time before it’s us.” He takes a breath to calm himself - to try not to think of Veronica and what’s happening to her, the cryptic message she sent to get out of the Garrison as soon as possible. He moves on to his next point. “And supplies? Maintaining a facility this big? Resources are going to run out sooner or later.”

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” Katie asks, but her tone is not worried or anxious. It’s excited.

“We steal supplies and leave,” Lance finishes.

“But where would we leave to?” Hunk asks.

“The city? The desert? It really doesn’t matter,” Lance says, maybe a little desperate. “We just can’t stay here. The Garrison’s hiding something - doing something dubious. We have to go before we’re next.”

“But at the risk of the zombies?” Hunk pushes. The technical name is “sun-afflicted”, but most people just call them “zombies”. It’s simple enough, makes enough sense. An exchange of fluids is all it takes to turn into one of them.

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t! Look,” Lance says, pushing his and Veronica’s last messages to Hunk’s face. “Please, we can’t stay.”

“What’s the plan?” Katie asks. Hunk doesn’t interrupt with anything else, shooting Lance a concerned look.

Lance sighs in relief.

-

They converge on the roof of the Garrison.

“I have the tech,” Katie says, lifting her backpack. “And weapons, and an engineering toolkit.”

“We’ve got food and water and iodine,” Hunk says, gesturing to his and Lance’s backpacks.

“Once we’re at the garage, I can hotwire the car,” Lance says. “Pass us each a weapon?”

Katie passes them each a gun. Lance does not let himself get too excited by the intricacies of it, even though it must be the newest model of laser guns. Hunk’s looks heavy enough to be a close-range bludgeoning weapon. Katie simply wields what looks like a short spear. Lance does not ask where she got it from. He knows he will simply get a non-answer.

“Down to the garage?” Hunk asks.

They head down to the garage.

-

The hallways of the Garrison are near deserted - manpower is at an all-time low. The internal security cameras - unless watching anything particularly important - are switched off to conserve power.

Lance hesitates, then darts behind the corner - hiding.

“There’s an active camera here,” he hisses.

Katie furrows her eyebrows. “Really? There shouldn’t be anything important here, though.”

Lance gestures in what he hopes conveys “That’s what I thought too!” accurately.

“Let’s check it out,” Katie says.

“Let’s not,” Hunk counters. “Let’s just… mind our own business… and leave…”

“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious?” Katie asks.

“How good are your hacking skills?” Lance asks his teammate. “Can you do something with the camera and the door?”

“Give me a minute.”

A minute later, Katie gives him a nod, and Lance peeks around the corner. The camera is still active, but Lance trusts she’s done something to its feed. The previously closed door, however, is open now. He darts in.

He freezes.

“Holy chocolate fudge cakes,” Hunk says from behind him. “Is that…”

In front of them, in a cage, sits a sun-afflicted, complete with purple skin, purple hair and yellow eyes.

“I can hear you,” the sun-afflicted scoffs.

“Who are you?” Katie asks.

“It’s Keith,” Lance says. “Look at that mullet - it literally can’t be anyone else.”

“It’s not a mullet!” Keith protests. “How do you know who I am- Who even are you?”

“Uh, the name’s Lance?” At Keith’s blank look, he elaborates. “We were in the same class when you still went to the Garrison?”

“Oh, uh- Were you an engineer?”

“That’s me,” Hunk says before Lance can explode over the blatant wrong-ness of the statement. “I’m Hunk, Lance is a pilot, and the tiny gremlin is Katie.”

“I’m not a gremlin!” Katie protests. “I’m perfectly-“

“Don’t worry Keith!” Someone yells, bursting through the door. “I’m- Who are you?“

“We’re escaping the Garrison,” Katie says. “Because’s Lance’s sister sent a weird cryptic message just before she disappeared from the staff ranks.”

“Are you Takashi Shirogane?” Lance asks, starstruck.

“Yes?”

“Guess you’re not sun-afflicted either,” Hunk comments.

“No? I never was,” Shiro says, clearly confused. “Is that what they’re telling people?”

The three who do know the answer to it all nod in tandem.

“That’s nice and all,” Keith says. “But I don’t particularly enjoy being locked up in a cage. If you’re worried about if I’ll infect you, the tests the Garrison have done say no. Just get me out.”

“On it,” Lance says, already fiddling with the old-fashioned lock, hairpins in hand.

“Where do you even learn all these?” Katie questions. “Hotwiring a car isn’t something anyone knows, and no one even uses lock-and-key locks anymore!”

“Hotwire a what-?” Shiro demands.

“Marco had a phase,” Lance answers, “And like, a month after the sun went ka-boom and radiation happened, Ronnie made me learn how to pick a lock. Maybe she anticipated this or something.” By the time he’s done explaining, the lock’s been picked and the door of the cage swings open. “Let’s go.”

-

“Where to now?” Hunk calls over the wind, riding behind Lance. “We never sorted that out.”

“I found Keith’s shack, the one in the middle of literally nowhere in the desert!” Shiro calls back, Katie clinging around his waist, “I also found something else - we can go there after a rest. There’s a lot of zombies around there though.”

“Oh, yay,” Keith makes a motion that must be the much more obvious version of rolling eyes. “Fun.”

“Fun?” Lance echoes.

“Fun,” Katie agrees, much less sarcastic than either of the boys.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've got questions, ask them. If you have tag suggestions, suggest them. I don't know what I'm doing anymore.


End file.
